Holding Out for Un-alienated Communication 

"In August 1996, we called for the creation of a network of independent media, a network of information. We mean a network to resist the power of the lie that sells us this war that we call the Fourth World War. We need this network not only as a tool for our social movements, but for our lives: this is a project of life, of humanity, humanity which has a right to critical and truthful information."

These were the words of Subcomandante Marcos, speaking in 1997 from Chiapas in the midst of the Zapatistas' guerrilla information war against the Mexican state and the neocolonialism reflected in NAFTA. Marcos's powerful statement and Zapatista stories of struggle were circulated from the jungle of Chiapas on mailing lists, listservs, and websites, capturing the imagination of activists around the world and galvanizing a wave of new grassroots media projects. Perhaps no project more purely embodied this response than the Indymedia network, which was launched in November 1999 at the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings and quickly grew into a global network of news websites.

• community media,
• grassroot journalism,
• activism,
• diy media,
• globalisation,
• independent media,
• info-activism,
• participatory media

Rome 12- 13 may: The revolt of a generation: Euromediterranean happening 

LaSapienza University - Happening about education, welfare and new political practices - In the last two years we have participated and assisted with extraordinary movements that have fought for a quality education, for labor rights and new welfare against the austerity politics of the European Union. The wild demonstrations, pickets lines and strikes, the university occupations and the turmoil of the Mediterranean signal a generational revolt and the necessity of a new social pact that involves all those subjects that stand up for their rights and refuse to be blackmailed.

• precarity,
• tactical education

Post-media operators: "sovereign & vague" 

No one recognises these powers as their own

(Why Theory?) We have to dispense with the idea that theorising occurs after the creative event; that a poem or a track or a text is made and then, as part of its process of dissemination, there follows the theorising of the piece. Such a theorising is normally attributed to those known variously as critics, reviewers and essayists.

• media theory,
• media criticism

The Becoming Environmental of Power: Tactical Media After Control - Part I 

There is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek experience at its source, or rather, above that decisive turn where, taking a bias in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience. (Bergson, 1991: 184).

• tactical media,
• media theory

Smashing the Image Factory. 

A Complete Manual of Billboard Subversion and Destruction

"When our work is done, advertising and billboards will fly beside the soviet flag in the museum of dead totalitarian experiments"

• culture jamming,
• billboard improvement

In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub 

In Antoine de Saint Exupéry's tale the Little Prince meets a businessman who accumulates stars with the sole purpose of being able to buy more stars. The Little Prince is perplexed. He owns only a flower, which he waters every day. Three volcanoes, which he cleans every week. "It is of some use to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them," he says, "but you are of no use to the stars that you own".

• infopolitics,
• copyleft,
• info-activism,
• copyright,
• free culture,
• intellectual property,
• digital commons

Global Uprisings 

Global Uprisings is an independent news site and video series dedicated to showing responses to the economic crisis and authoritarianism. Since 2011, Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh have been travelling, researching, and making documentary films.

Their short films detail social movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and the US. Their films cover strikes and demonstrations in the UK, the large-scale housing occupations and street mobilizations in Spain, the various general strikes, protests, and factory occupations in Greece, the revolution in Egypt, the Gezi Park uprising in Turkey, the 2014 social explosion in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the revolt against austerity in Portugal, and the occupy movement in the United States.

• activism,
• public space,
• video activism,
• street protest,
• occupy,
• tactical research

Engaging Ambivalence 

Interventions in Engineering Cultures

The most significant underwriter of engineering research in the United States is the Department of Defense, largely acting through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA exists to channel funds from the military to academic and corporate research labs in exchange for technological innovations that serve the needs of its clients - the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. As DARPA public relations officers are fond of pointing out, innovations funded by DARPA grants may also find expression in civilian applications, particularly in the communications and aerospace industries.

• contestational robotics

Post-media Operators 

1.
The record industry is in the process of being outflanked by means of the very processes that it has come to rely upon. Since the 60's its continual efforts to create new needs has meant that it nurtured an everchanging musical soundscape that is now mutating at such a pace that it cannot keep track long enough to harness these musical evolutions in the direction of profit. That fact that it doesn't achieve this harnessing has the remarkable effect of making the 'new' last longer! A longevity that comes from our always being able to place ourselves amidst a continual re-definition of these sounds. Even in terms of format, the profit-orientated shift to a CD market which may have meant that back-catalogues could be re-sold has also worked to deliver an on-line tap of musical history at the same time that vinyl pressing has become cheaper. These and other factors feed into the accelerating mutation that in turn creates a dissatisfaction with what the industry can offer.

• media theory,
• media criticism

International #GlobalDebout meeting, May 7-8, Paris 

International meeting for #GlobalDebout programme May 7th-8th – Paris, Place de la République
Location: Paris, Place de la République

This meeting is intended for activists and citizens all over the world.
International Call by #NuitDebout

• precarity,
• art of campaigning,
• labour,
• street protest

Clean Clothes Campaign 

The CCC is an international campaign, focused on improving working conditions in the global garment and sportswear industries, and empower the workers in it. There is a Clean Clothes Campaign in 12 European countries. These are Austria, Belgium (North and South), Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

• activism,
• globalisation,
• labour,
• garment industry

No One is Illegal! Manifesto 

For a world without borders! No immigration controls!

DEFEND THE OUTLAW!

Immigration controls should be abolished. People should not be deemed 'illegal' because they have fallen foul of an increasingly brutal and repressive system of controls. Why is immigration law different from all other law? Under all other laws it is the act that is illegal, but under immigration law it is the person who is illegal. Those subject to immigration control are dehumanized, are reduced to non-persons, are nobodies. They are the modern outlaw. Like their medieval counterpart they exist outside of the law and outside of the law's protection. Opposition to immigration controls requires defending all immigration outlaws.

A Virtual World is Possible: From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes 

I.

We start with the current strategy debates of the so-called 'anti-globalisation movement', the biggest emerging political force for decades. In Part II we will look into strategies of critical new media culture in the post-speculative phase after dotcommania. Four phases of the global movement are becoming visible, all of which have distinct political, artistic and aesthetic qualities.

• politics,
• tactical media,
• infopolitics,
• net.activism,
• net criticism

Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class 

Arthur Kroker, Canadian media theorist and is the author of 'ThePossessed Individual', 'Spasm' and 'Hacking the Future'. Over the pastyears he, together with Marilouise Kroker, were often in Europe andmade appearances at Virtual Futures, V-2, Eldorado/Antwerpen, etc.Recently, they have also been discovered in German-speaking countries.Both are noted for their somewhat compact jargon, which made theirmessage appear to drown somewhat in overcomplex code. But "DataTrash"`(1994) changed all that. The long treck through the squashydiscourses had not been in vain. Firmly rooted in European philosophy,yet not submerged, Arthur Kroker has found his topic: the virtual class.

• theory,
• media theory

N5M3 South Asia Forum Presentation 

Working with new media in the part of South Asia that I come from is something like crossing a tightrope on a bicycle. The bicycle which could have helped me along were I on my way on flat ground makes the crossing that much more precarious. Consider the bicycle to be the single computer and the internet connection which I use along with at least seventeen other people, friends, colleagues, neighbours and complete strangers.

Wide Open to the Web Warriors 

Activists are using the internet to fight large companies over ethical issues. Yet many major brand-owners lack a clear counter-strategy. Earlier this month a group of environmental activists staged a sit-in at Shell's London offices. Although Shell turned the power off and cut the phone lines, activist Roddy Mansfield  broadcast the protest live to the internet and e-mailed the press, using a digital camera, laptop computer and mobile phone.

• campaign,
• war,
• activism,
• net.activism

Tortugan tower blocks? 

Pirate signals from the margins

• radio,
• diy media,
• media criticism